Ryan Pera lived on pizza in college. Cheap pizza. Convenient pizza. Opportunistic pizza. Even bad pizza was better than no pizza at all, he said.

Oh, how he's changed his tune. Pera's grown up. So has his palate. Pizza is now a terribly evolved, highly intellectual passion for him. And he's sharing that unbridled pizza love at Coltivare, the new Heights neighborhood restaurant where he aims to send out the city's most exquisite pies.

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Coltivare is the first restaurant co-owned by Pera and Morgan Weber. In March 2011, the pair opened Revival Market, a game-changing marketplace for artisan products such as Weber's Mangalitsa pork, fresh produce from area farmers and specialty foods from local purveyors. They put the same "fresh and local" smarts into Coltivare, located only blocks from Revival Market in the former White Oak Bakery at 3320 White Oak.

The restaurant's most distinctive feature isn't in the restaurant or on the menu. It's the 3,000-square-foot on-site garden that eventually could provide as much as 50 percent of the produce for the Coltivare kitchen. The garden has been planted with a dozen citrus trees (kumquat, blood orange, satsuma, Meyer lemon), herbs, lettuce, blackberry bushes, passion-fruit vines and carrots. Designed in collaboration with Scott Snodgrass of Edible Earth Resources (an edible gardening company in Houston), the garden features raised beds of heirloom vegetables and a wall with planters for even more spring and summer herbs, vegetables and fruit.

The owners continued their commitment to sourcing locally in the construction of the restaurant. Weber, who designed the space, was adamant about using reclaimed and repurposed wood for the warm, rustic interior. Unstained wood walls and floorboards come from homes throughout Houston, and the bar back and tabletops are wood from an antebellum plantation in Brazoria County. The front of the bar is clad in rare cypress found in East Texas. "You can't get this feel with new wood," Weber said, adding that 95 percent of the wood used in Coltivare was reclaimed. "We wanted the restaurant to feel broken in."

Even the bistro-worthy zinc bar was repurposed from a restaurant where Pera worked in North Carolina as a young chef. The partners went out of their way to source that weighty zinc bar top - a nod both to their preservationist leanings and Pera's career as a chef.

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"I've always wanted to be the chef of a small, neighborhood restaurant," said Pera, who returns to a full-fledged restaurant kitchen after his years of retail cooking at Revival Market. (He previously wowed Houston diners at 17 Restaurant at the Alden Hotel and at the Grove on Discovery Green.) "At my first executive chef job I realized, ultimately, I'd land at a small, neighborhood restaurant. So I created it myself."

Keeping with the neighborhood idea, 40 bike racks have been placed at the lip of the garden for those who want to pedal to the restaurant.

Coltivare's menu is seasonal American food with an Italian bent. "I believe Italian food is simply using the ingredients closest to you," Pera said.

Foodies familiar with Revival's adherence to simple, full-flavored and locally sourced food will recognize Pera's clean, creative focus on the Coltivare menu. There are "snacks": radishes with butter and Galveston sea salt; giardiniera pickles; chicken-liver mousse; and a "bycatch baccala" (a rustic brandade using local trash fish). Diners also can start with cured meats from Revival Market. Small-plate options include mussels with fermented fish sauce, capers and garlic; cured sausage with lentils and winter squash; cauliflower with pine nuts and raisins; crispy sweetbreads with anchovy, chervil and horseradish; and chicken wings with chile and lemon basil.

The beverage program is intended to complement the menu's Italian leanings. Weber has been busy creating a cocktail program that will lean heavily on drinks made with Italian liqueurs, aperitivos and digestivos. The restaurant's wine list is being curated by general manager Jeb Stuart and will feature 60 global selections with an emphasis on Italian wines. Coltivare will be BYOB until it gets its licensing. When it does, it will operate as a member's club in the Heights tradition.

The restaurant's most important signature will be the wood-fired pizza. Pera is most proud of that aspect of Coltivare. He's worked on the dough for a year, perfecting its laborious, three-stage process of fermenting and rising. His goal is a crust that has the qualities of "beautiful, European, artisanal" bread. He's looking for dough that's nice and airy with big bubbles. It even has some local sorghum molasses, a thoughtful Texas touch.